The Coalition has lived on for so long due to its unity. The Principalities may bicker and squabble, but the free trade and exchange of ideas between them has fostered the prosperity of every member. We have learned the lessons of the past, when we were divided and under the thumb of the despotic Apexillos.

  – Sage Galyn Orlis, Royal Historian

  His head throbbed.

  “It’s jamming the missiles! I’m not picking up any jamming tech, what’s it doing?”

  “Nnngh…” Lieutenant Naven Moongale groaned, opening his eyes… and immediately snapping them shut under the harsh white glare of the room. He raised his hand to his head, a pulsing ache shooting down from the shoulder before his palm covered his eyes.

  “Direct hit on the port side! I… I don’t think it’s running shields, Captain. Are they insane?”

  He knew that ache. When he’d been crippled before, the potions they’d given him had knit together the otherwise permanent wounds, but they’d left him in almost constant pain during the entire process. Medicinal potions, not a full-fledged healer. What had happened?

  “Hull breach! The shields won’t work against those claws! How is it moving like that?!”

  Moongale cracked his fingers enough to let in a sliver of light. It pierced through his head like a silver needle, but he hissed in a breath and endured. The brilliance of the light started to fade.

  “Fire in gunnery! Palemoon, what’s the situation down there?”

  That’s right. He’d been on the bridge during the attack. The strange craft that had suddenly started moving like a living being. The tail swaying with no reason, wings tilting like it wanted to bank. Flying in space like soaring through the air, impossibly.

  “Multiple bulkheads breached! It’s tearing us apart, Captain!”

  Then the horror had hit. Optimized for beam attacks, missiles, and magnetic slugs, the corvette’s defenses had been worthless against a massive incoming ship willing to grapple with them. That simply wasn’t done. Once the first salvo of missiles had been countered, it was too late. He should have ordered heat-seekers used, instead.

  “Abandon ship! All crew to the lifepods!”

  He remembered now. Running past the still form of Margrove, the CPO’s head twisted at an unnatural angle, eyes staring blankly. Lights flickering and a console erupting into flames. Commander Bastia barking the order to abandon ship, to escape with their lives, then…

  He remembered the ship shuddering, his body hurled about the corridor. Then…

  Here?

  Slowly, Moongale slid his hand away from his eyes, blinking as the room came into focus. White walls, angled ceilings. Several more beds nearby, all empty. The walls and the conduits running along them looked old, dated. An old installation, then, not modernized. He was used to that. At least the beds looked more recent than the medbay. Last generation, but here in the backwater regions, more modern facilities and furniture were relatively rare.

  And this was a medbay, he realized. Not a hospital or infirmary, but a ship’s medbay. A larger ship than the corvette he’d been on, but the cramped sensation of the room wouldn’t be tolerated in a real hospital, nor even a station.

  A quick pass over his body confirmed that he wasn’t strapped down, but he pushed himself up cautiously anyway. His head still swam for a moment before the room righted itself, and he took in a deep breath to try to steady himself. The expected antiseptic scent flooded his nose, but tinged with something else… grease, a hint of ozone. Something might be wrong with the recyclers, and that made him worry.

  Where had he ended up?

  And why were the other beds empty?

  Moongale’s stomach twisted as his mind flashed again to Margrove, the half-elf’s head twisted around and blood seeping from one temple.

  Was he the only survivor?

  He swung his legs over the edge of the cot, grunting softly. His uniform chafed, and he could now also smell himself. An unpleasant odor, but from the look of his battered, soot-covered uniform, it hadn’t been that long since the battle. He must have been picked up right after by…

  No other ships had been scheduled for that route.

  *Fzzt!*

  “You are awake. Good.” The voice was the same throaty rumble as the one that had given the third and final ultimatum, different from the pleasant yet demanding feminine one of the first two. The voice that had casually laid claim to the Vibrant Blade before the Draconis ship had torn it apart.

  Moongale groaned. “So I’m on a Cult ship. I’m a prisoner, then?” He bit back a sigh. The unpredictability of the cultists would be hard to work with. He’d have to be very careful.

  The voice grunted in what sounded like annoyance, layered with the slight interference of the aging comm system. “You are on a ship that has a Cult member on it, that is true. And you are a prisoner for the time being. I am sure Sallus will be along in due time to ask her own questions. For now, you are under my protection and she will not harm you.”

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  One eyebrow raised at that statement. Moongale looked up, but of course the speaker was talking through the intercom. Likely there was a camera in here as well, or more than one, as they’d known he was awake. He cleared his throat and looked about, finding a glass of water thoughtfully provided beside the bed.

  A long, draining swallow washed down his parched throat, and Moongale let out a loud sigh of relief before speaking again. “So you are not with the Cult? Who are you then? Is this your ship?”

  “You have a lot of questions for a prisoner,” the voice replied. “I am working with the Cult because our goals are, for the time being, in alignment with one another. I know little of their goals, nor do I care what they are. Now you will tell me who you are, and answer my questions.”

  Moongale crossed his arms, stifling a flinch of pain from the way it brought a flare of straining muscles in his elbow. “Lieutenant Naven Moongale, Wolfson Commonwealth Militia, assigned to the CSS Vibrant Blade out of New Tensdale. I refuse to answer any further questions until I know the name of my captor.”

  “I already introduced myself,” the voice answered. The scratchy, deep timbre made even minor annoyance sound threatening. “You Lesser Folk have such short memories. I am Apexillos, and you are in my… what was the term? Medical bay? An odd term, but I see how it came about.”

  Head throbbing, Moongale placed his hand on his forehead and ran fingers through the dark brown hair. He let out a long breath. “Okay, so you’re named after the Emperor Dragon, and this is your ship. What is the ship name? And why did you spare me when you said no mercy? Not that I’m complaining.”

  “You’re very slow-witted, aren’t you?” Apexillos grunted in annoyance. “I am the ship, and I am not named after anyone. I am me, and this has always been my name. I think I need to speak to Sallus about what strange stories you’ve all been telling about me.”

  The rumble receded from the voice. “You were spared because it was Sallus who claimed no mercy. I was the one who fought the battle, so I set the terms. To needlessly kill a crippled opponent who was no threat to me seemed wasteful, and you may have information that can help me. You were not the target of my ire, you were simply in the way. Do not mistake this for any attachment to you, you are simply – for the moment – useful to me in ways Sallus is not.”

  Again, Moongale felt his stomach flip. His ship destroyed, crew dead, and now captive of a deranged voice that thought it was a dragon and was in some sort of power struggle with an insane cultist. To say he was not in a position of comfort would be an understatement and then some.

  Maybe he could leverage this, then.

  “So this Sallus is in the Cult of Renewal? And you are… Apexillos, who just happens to share the same name as the ancient Emperor Dragon of myth? What sort of goals could you have in alignment, then? Are you going to conquer the Coalition?”

  Apexillos grumbled quietly before answering. “Why would I conquer the Coalition? I presume it is some sort of large political entity. I care little for your politics, I am simply taking back what is mine. I have no desire to rule over Lesser Folk such as yourself. What a strange idea. And what do you believe this Cult intends to do?”

  Moongale slid out of bed and approached the door, keeping one hand on the wall to fight down the brief dizziness. His uniform was torn and burned in places, and some parts of his skin freshly-healed, but his wounds appeared to have been treated by at least the typical shipboard medical potions.

  A quick tap at the door’s lock confirmed his suspicions. The lock bleeped angrily at him, denying exit. It was worth a try.

  “You really have no intentions to rule? That isn’t what I’ve heard,” he muttered. “The Cult of Renewal claims we’ve been stifled by the centuries of rulership by the same people, and that each Principality should go about their own ways by themselves. At least, that’s the rhetoric. It’s pretty obvious to everyone they just want to take over for themselves. I presume you have the same goal, so I have no real interest in helping you.”

  The dry chuckle from the intercom was a little unnerving. “You have no proof of that, though? No matter. Even if Sallus intends to rule the entire Coalition at the end of this, she is welcome to it, so long as she leaves me be. Who rules your petty kingdoms is not my concern. But I am unfamiliar with this time, and more immediately, I have other questions.”

  Yet another claim of disinterest. Moongale was getting more and more uneasy about this. He didn’t like politics himself, but distrusted the statement that Apexillos didn’t want to rule. Nobody takes that name without knowing what it means. “I try not to think about things that much,” he admitted to the voice. “But it sounds like this Sallus is just using you.”

  “Of course she is.” The dragon’s voice was matter-of-fact and without surprise. “You are trying to sow distrust between me and her, I am sure. Do not bother. I am aware she is using me, and do not care, so long as I get what I want. We have a mutual desire, and that is enough. For the time being, I am keeping you safe, so I suggest you continue to be useful. Keeping a prisoner on board is an inconvenience to me, and she was against it from the start.”

  Moongale didn’t trust the voice entirely. Why would he? But he did believe that if he were too obstinate, he would find himself in deep space without a ship. Some of this didn’t add up, though.

  “Where is Sallus now? Do I need to worry about her walking in and shooting me?”

  “Probably,” Apexillos replied. “But not right now. She is siphoning the fuel tanks from your ship into mine. I am half watching her right now, so I know how to do this.”

  That gave Moongale more information… but nothing helpful. He was out of his depth and he knew it. None of this made any sense compared to what he already knew, and he wasn’t high enough up the intelligence chain to draw any conclusions.

  The dragon’s voice interrupted the Lieutenant’s thoughts. “As we needed supplies, my own desire would have been to attack a lesser-armed merchant vessel to take what we wanted. My question then, is whether the patrol craft was a good target. It would seem to me that would put your kind on higher alert.”

  Now Moongale bit his lip. He did not want to give away operational information, and this was more than likely some extremely complicated and obtuse means of interrogation that he’d never seen before. Yet there were some pieces of information that seemed obvious, and if he could get more out of the voice, even delusions… perhaps he could turn this to his advantage.

  Aloud, the patrolman sighed. “When we fail to check in, they’ll immediately investigate. If your idea was to avoid getting military response, that backfired. You have hours, at best.” His memory was spotty of the final moments, but he was pretty certain that they’d managed to send at least a partial distress, but he didn’t say that. “This won’t give you any more control of the territory, if that’s what you were after.”

  “Hmm.” The deep rumble sounded more contemplative here. “I do not know what her goal was, but that was not mine. Very well. Perhaps she intended to provoke your people into action.” A long pause. “Are you fit enough to leave? I can offer you quarters, but you will need to remain inside them.”

  Warily, Moongale pat himself down. “I’m… still very sore, but I don’t think I need to stay in medbay. Quarters would be nicer. And I’d like to meet this Sallus person, if I can. It would all be easier for you if you’d turn yourself in.”

  “And what would your people do with a ship with the soul of a dragon?”

  That gave the Lieutenant pause. He’d presumed that the voice was someone in a control room, extending their delusion to the ship itself. The Cult of Renewal was not known for their high mental stability. Now that he considered it, though… the way that the Draconis had moved was eerily fluid, and far more coordinated. As far as he knew, moving the appendages took an entire crew for each one, so for a vessel to move like that would require either a highly-trained, full crew operating in perfect sync, or…

  That sixth sense that he sometimes got sent a crawling chill up his spine.

  He needed more information.

  “Just… guide me to a room.”